While the remaining women held hostage in Bana have been released according to Helen Hakena who has been a founding member of GPPAC in the Pacific and a leading peace activist it is critical that the root causes of this recent crisis is addressed including …April 26 2013

FemTALK 1325 – Bougainville Update

While the remaining women held hostage in Bana have been released according to Helen Hakena who has been a founding member of GPPAC in the Pacific and a leading peace activist it is critical that the root causes of this recent crisis is addressed including the repealing of the PNG Sorcery Act and a resumption of the Weapons Disposal Programme.

She spoke to FemLINKPacific’s Community Media Officer – Nandini Vandhana a few hours before the announcement of the release:

“We think that the Sorcery Act needs to be repealed because it has loopholes, there is no space to condemn or to bring perpetrators to justice, to Court, so it is one of the weakest links. The government needs to look at that to strengthen and to repeal what has been contained, to repeal the Act to make it stronger. Like perpetrators should be brought to Court. In past years, we heard that the Act was available and then we heard that the government did not want to discuss it further so we really feel that we need someone to explain to us the Act so we can lobby the government to repeal the Sorcery Act.”

“For women leaders and NGOs and the general public, we really would like the act to be repealed because then the perpetrators could be brought to justice and to the court and then victims can then have the chance to talk about the issues, to protect themselves.”

Hakena has been leading a Human Rights Action Committee which will continue to work with other civil society groups to continue to advocate for the repeal of the PNG Sorcery Action but she is also adamant that the presence of weapons must also be addressed.

She says it is a matter of both personal and political security:

“We women of Bougainville would really like the government to remove all the weapons in Bougainville before the Referendum in two years time because weapons disposal is one of the pillars in the peace agreement and the ABG needs to remove and destroy them so it needs political will from ABG to do that.”

Civil society including women’s groups must be included in defining and implementing security sector governance reform as well as broader human security and human development issues particularly to address increasing levels of crime:

“Things are being stolen from Buka, boats, computers, from the shops. Young people are looting, they are taking these things across to the Solomon Islands.”

It is essential, she says to improve border controls measures.

The law and order issues, according to Hakena stem from the unresolved issues of the Bougainville crisis:

“Women have been urged to report to the police anything they see in their homes and ask them to continue to do peace building work for the security of the people in the community in Bougainville.”

This she says is also affecting the delivery of health services referring to a recent rally organised to bring attention to the poor conditions in hospital services and to protest rising acts of crime targetting hospital services was a demonstration of the way in which Bougainville community needs to work together:

“(Yes) the Hospital rally, there were three members of parliament included as well as other women leaders and the Police was also present. The hospital management, doctors and nurses, they walked of their job today to be part of the rally. So everyone today condemned the action of the thieves and this is the fifth time that it has happened to the hospital properties and there has been in the past, hospital buildings have been vandalized.”

“Today, we called on the hospital management to look at people’s right to access Hospital services. Their health security is at stake particularly, women who are coming in from long distances to give birth but only to find that the hospital is closed as well as little children are sick and then they can’t access these services. They have to but their own medicine from the pharmacy which is very costly and now the doctors have vowed to do a better job and that they will continue to work despite the harsh conditions.”

FemLINKPacific is the Pacific Secretariat of GPPAC (Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict)www.femlinkpacific.org.fj